


What If I Say I'm (Not) Like the Others?

by Mauisse_Flowers



Category: Ancient Egyptian Religion, The Mummy Series, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Ardeth is old and ready to fight everyone, Ardeth is too old for reincarnation bullshit and yet he STILL deals with it, Awesome Darcy Lewis, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Darcy is Ardeth's great-granddaughter, Darcy is a Medjai, Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 16:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9081217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mauisse_Flowers/pseuds/Mauisse_Flowers
Summary: Darcy Lewis wasn't always Darcy Lewis. But in this life, that's all she's ever wanted to be.





	

Darcy is nine when she begins to remember things she shouldn’t know at such an age. Like how to twirl a knife without looking or about Pharaoh Seti the First and his daughter or even how to scale a wall with and without shoes. Darcy never tells anyone this, but her suddenly rise in history and math knowledge isn’t missed. She’s ten when her mother drops a heavy glass pan of brownie batter and Darcy, on instinct, pushes her mother back and catches the pan in trembling fingers. Her mother stares at her for a long, solemn moment as giant blues look back, then says in a language Darcy has never heard but knows like she knows her name, “ **It is time.** ”

She doesn’t understand what her mother means, just that she puts the brownies in the oven and then rushes for her phone. She dials a number and begins talking right away, heading upstairs so Darcy cannot hear the conversation. When the brownies are done, she comes back to prepare them, phone gone and a backpack and duffle packed. Darcy is put on a flight that evening, only one brownie eaten by her.

The first thing her baaba geddi Ardeth Bey teaches her after Darcy is dropped, unceremoniously, into Cairo, Egypt is that you always keep your hands in your pockets if you have them so no thief can take your money. Second is that you keep all your money and valuables in your bra. Third is that you keep everything else in your socks. What her baaba geddi does not teach her is how to pick-pocket people and hotwire a car. That she learns herself as a big “fuck you” to her mother and ancestors deciding she was going to be a Medjai when she wanted to go to ballet class and watch _Sailor Moon_.

Darcy learns a lot of things in Egypt. Fighting and self-defense are just the tip of the iceberg. Next is how to tap into her many memories as a Medjai, from her first life to her current. Apparently, she’s to tap into these abilities with each life then go find and protect the Princess Nefertiri, who’s there to make sure “the creature” never awakens. Again.

Darcy has no inclination to be this protector Medjai, not willingly. And she proves it by using these memories to evade her baaba geddi and the other Medjai and run off into parts unknown. She steals, and cheats, and likely has several warrants out for her arrest in other cities now.

She gets her first tattoo when sixteen. “I do not lead or follow. I make my own path” wraps around her wrist in jagged Arabic. It’s illegal to get at her age and she gets drunk after because she can, cursing her family to the stars she once thought were her ancestors leading her to a future she wanted.

Baaba geddi is the only person in her family to ever ask what Darcy wants. It’s shortly before she gets her tattoo, and she’s always spoken to him easier than anyone. Probably because of the fact he married an American and that, eventually, led to her. He understands her better than the others, or at least attempts to and typically succeeds.

“What is it you want, hafeeda?” he asks, and she stares at him long and hard, wondering why he asks her now. Why not when her mother first dumped her here, in this hot sun where her pale European skin would burn into a crisp and not a tan and she had cried for her mother to come get her? Why not after the first time she was caught trying to sneak past customs, and go back to America? But she does not say any of this, respecting her baaba geddi more than he certainly did her.

At the time, Darcy never realized that her baaba geddi has respected her, she just never knew. But she looks him in the eyes and says, with no care for him in that moment and with no want to know what he’s done to give her a good, safe life, “I want to go to college in America. I do not want to be a Medjai or be apart of this mummy nonsense. I never have and never will.”

Her baaba geddi’s happy-creased mouth tilts into some sad smile at that, something in his dark, wizened eyes that makes Darcy regret her words right after, and he bows his silver head. “Alright, hafeeda. You may go play now.”

And she gets up, brushing off her shorts, and runs barefoot from his hut. The following week she gets her tattoo, and the next baaba geddi sits her down in his hut again. He does not look disappointed like the others at what she’s done. But he rarely ever has. Like she’s stated, he understands Americans better than most of the others.

He pulls an envelope from a pocket on his robes. Even in his old age, baaba geddi has never worn anything but his Medjai robes. She’s never seen him in anything else. Darcy thinks she wouldn’t recognize him if he did.

“Baaba?” She asks, using her shortened nickname for her great-grandfather.

“Hafeeda, you told me what you want two weeks ago.”

She nods, thinking of how sad and bone-tired he looked. It’s the only regret she’s felt since being forced here. Darcy wonders if he regrets letting her mother send her here.

“I have procured money for you to return to America and cover most of the expenses in your first year of any college of your choosing.”

Darcy hasn’t even fully registered what he has said, what it all means, and she’s already saying, “Come with me.”

Then she feels completely, utterly stupid. This is not her home, but it is her baaba geddi’s. He would never leave it for her. He is also very old, bones loudly creaking and clearly ready to die any day. Why he is not dead she will never know, him being well over one hundred by now. The old Medjai’s few moments of extreme spryness come to mind after, once watching him trip a thief boy and _thwap_ him in the ass as he toppled to the dusty streets.

Amazingly, though, her baaba geddi smiles at her and asks, “Why me, hafeeda? I am but an old, worn Egyptian.”

“Because I love you.”

Darcy has never used those words since arriving in Cairo. The words are like sacred texts to her, never uttered for they leave your heart upon your sleeve. But it is true. Darcy loves him and wants to be with him, and make sure he is happy and taken care of and she wants to be there when he finally does take his last breath. She would spend all that money he holds out to her on him if she could, saving none for college and simply earning it back.

Baaba geddi leans across the space, and kisses her burnt forehead. “Then you are ready, hafeeda. I knew as you came sobbing through customs you were not to be here. And I wish to go with you, hafeeda, but my place is here.”

She takes a gentle grasp of his wrist, looking sadly and happily upon him. Her heart feels battered in a stormy ocean wind. “Why not? Just a couple months as I settle. And I am only 16, I cannot be there without an adult. I refuse to go back to my mother. Please.”

Darcy pleads her case more, using many good points. He concedes when she begins to cry, patting her shoulder.

“I am old, hafeeda. Do not expect me to live forever.”

“It is why I want you with me.” she admits her selfish desire. All Darcy has been is selfish, she sees no reason to change now.

Baaba geddi smiles again, and tucks the envelope into his robes again. “Then rest. We will begin the process tomorrow, hafeeda.”

Darcy grins at him, and scrambles to her feet and rushes to her hut to take the pallet to his. She sleep there that night, and the ones that follow. He does not say anything like he did when she tried to do this as a child. He indulges her now.

Within the course of two months, Darcy’s baaba geddi and her get passports and Darcy uses her nifty skills to procure a green card for her baaba geddi. He talks about how he’d only left Africa once, back in his much younger days when he was tasked with helping return the creature to it’s grave twice.

Darcy listens to him as they fly to America, enraptured by her baaba geddi. She may not want to be a Medjai, but she did admire the resolve and strength one needed to be one. She also understood that, if she had wanted, Darcy would have made a formidable Medjai. But she did not want it and so she was not.

“Baaba geddi, I am glad you agreed to come with me.” she says with a sigh and droopy eyes, very tired. He pats her hand gently and tells her to get some sleep. She does, curling into her seat and turning to him.

He ignores the fact she’s using her early developed chest as a pillow– again, and he will forever wonder how– and settles in for his own nap, robes wrapped around him. In a few hours, they will arrive in America and Darcy will apply to several colleges. And then she will meet Dr. Jane Foster, whom he once called Evie.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s a different take on the Mummy/Darcy Lewis X-over. And it may very-well have been either AroAce!Darcy or Darcy/A God of My Choosing (*coughsanubisorbutocough*). This has no follow-up. Sorry! :)
> 
> As far as I could procure, Baaba geddi is a way to say great-grandfather or something of the like in Egyptian Arabic (which is the more common Arabic, I think?). Hafeeda is granddaughter in Egyptian Arabic as well.
> 
> Title taken from “The Pretender” by Foo Fighters. I think that may be my theme for Reincarnated Medjai!Darcy.
> 
> TAGS:  
> #DARCY IS A MEDJAI  
> #DARCY IS ARDETH'S GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER  
> #THE MUMMY X-OVER  
> #MCU X-OVER  
> #THE MUMMY  
> #MCU  
> #DARCY LEWIS  
> #MAUISSE WRITES  
> #JANE FOSTER IS EVIE  
> #JANE FOSTER IS NEFERTIRI  
> #ARDETH IS OLD AND READY TO FIGHT ANYONE WHO POINTS IT OUT  
> #HE WILL KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS IF YOU LOOK AT DARCY WRONG AND SHE DIDNT SEE YOU FIRST  
> #HE CALLS HER THREE TIMES A DAY FROM CULVER  
> #BECAUSE HE'S A FUCKING WORRYWART AND AMERICANS DONT KNOW HOW TO KEEP THEIR FEET ON THE GROUND  
> #(AND APPARENTLY NOT ASGARDIANS EITHER MUCH TO HIS ANNOYANCE)  
> #ARDETH WOULDNT DIE IN THIS FIC BECAUSE HE'S TOO PRECIOUS  
> #AND WHEN HE DID THE GODS WOULD DO SOME CRAZY MAGIC SHIT TO BRING HIM BACK SO DARCY AND JANE WOULD STOP CRYING  
> #AND BECAUSE HE MAKES A DAMN GOOD BASBOUSA  
> #EVEN THEY COULDN'T SAY GOODBYE TO THAT PERFECTION


End file.
